Age of Foolishness
by chezchuckles
Summary: a Worst of Times companion, set after Age of Wisdom and Best of Times. for Sandiane Carter - Happy Birthday!
1. Chapter 1

**Age of Foolishness**

a **Worst of Times** companion, set after Age of Wisdom and Best of Times

* * *

Happy Birthday, Julie

* * *

_It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way –_

-A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

* * *

He's asleep in their bed, and she takes the dark, too-early-morning hours to brush her fingers softly over his forehead, the slope of his nose, his cheekbones. She skims the jut of his chin, traces the edge of his jaw - and then moves to his neck.

The ligature marks still stain his skin.

She barely touches it, lets herself slowly grow accustomed to the nature of its smooth ridges, its even features. It's a part of him, but it will fade eventually. It has, actually, already begun to fade.

Kate slides closer and presses her lips to the tail edge of the mark, gasps when his hand tangles in her hair.

"Sorry," she murmurs against his skin. "Go back to sleep."

His chest vibrates with a hum, but not words, and he turns over nearly on top of her. Kate huffs and draws a hand to his bare shoulder, turns to look at his face now on her pillow. He's blinking slowly, licks his bottom lip before he focuses on her.

"What're you doin'?"

"Nothing," she says softly, moving her fingers to the hair on his neck. "Woke too early."

He sucks in a long, stuttering breath and closes his eyes again, drops right back into sleep.

Kate brushes her thumb across his neck, the rope burn catching every whorl of her fingerprint. She tilts her head and kisses his temple, closes her eyes and tries to follow him down.

* * *

He wakes and has to pee, brutal and sharp, struggles out of bed for the bathroom with his brain sloshing around in his head. He goes, washes his hands, and happens to look up at himself in the mirror at just that moment.

The nightlight washes his skin in pale blue, the round scars on his chest a sickly grey in the shadows. He lifts his fingers to the place where the taser's prongs bit into his skin, the scars puckered and angry because of the electrodes. Jerry had modified the thing, more than fifty thousand volts, black market, and it had ripped through him like fire.

He has memories he doesn't want, fractured images of agony, and every time he almost begins to forget, he has these marks on his chest to remind him. The faint and dark impression of rope around his neck is nothing - he doesn't even recall Tyson strangling him. But these. . .

His fingers ache suddenly, throbbing, and he lifts his hands to look at them in the darkness. His left index finger is still slightly crooked, but on the whole, he's remarkably healed.

A warmth at his back makes him jump, but then her arms are around him, her face pressed to his shoulder blade, her moist breath against his skin. His shoulders droop and his hands come up to hers, their fingers lacing together.

"Kate," he murmurs.

Instead of answering him, her palms skate up his chest and hover over those scars, her fingers rubbing, rhythmic and haunting.

"When I saw you on the floor of your study," she says softly; he feels her breath hitch but he won't stop her. "I was afraid it would never be okay again. How do you come back from that?"

He blinks in the darkness of his bathroom, their bathroom; he can't even see her, just the length of her arms around him, and he can feel the touch of her fingers, soothing, the heat of her at his back, protective.

"I don't know," he says finally, his voice raw. "I don't know how."

She shakes her head against him, twists around to crowd between him and the sink, her body strong against his chest. Her mouth opens over first one scar and then the other, the touch of her tongue cool relief.

"You have though," she murmurs. "You have. Even when I was falling apart on you-"

"You never-"

"I did. But not you. So when it's your turn, Castle, I'm here. If you need to-"

He crushes her in an embrace, his arms squeezing so tightly that he can feel the rigidity of her muscles as she resists being completely destroyed by the fierce and overwhelming need he has to subsume Kate Beckett into himself.

His mouth opens at her jaw, his teeth scraping hard, and then she squeezes his hips, her nails digging into his skin until it breaks through. The bright points of her fingers act like blades to pierce the darkness, let in a little light.

Castle pulls back, panting, seeing her there in the cold light, her eyes relentless on his. He bends his knees to bring himself level with her and gentles his embrace, presses his cheek to hers and feels her breathing.

Soft, slow, soothing.

"Tell me what happened with Tyson," she says quietly. "Get the story out, Castle."

He doesn't want to. Doesn't want it in his head to begin with and he definitely doesn't want to paint those images any clearer for her either.

"No," he says finally, swallowing hard. "I just want to go to bed."

He turns in her arms to head back to their room, but he catches her fingers with his and draws her after him. When he slides between the sheets, she's right at his back, scooting him over instead of walking around to her side. So he moves, feels her arms draw around him, her body pressed to his, and it makes him feel - powerful, cherished.

"Sleep then, Castle." She presses a kiss to his neck and squeezes his shoulders a little, her fingers drifting to those scars, brushing over them.

"You're like my superman cape," he murmurs, smiling into his pillow. He feels her laugh, the undulation of her body against his back, and he falls onto his stomach to sleep.

She stays right there, and it feels good having her all over him.

* * *

Kate wakes before he does, has to peel her sweaty skin off of his, laughing softly as she smooths the spiky ends of his hair. She kisses his cheek and moves around the bed to twist closed the wooden slats of the blinds, shutting out the morning sun.

She trails her fingers over his calf as she moves back to the bathroom, starts the shower. She's not sure how much sleep he got last night, but she wants to wash her hair, get clean, and then crawl back into bed with him.

One year anniversary today and she really wishes he'd talk about it. But he's refused every time.

One year since Jerry Tyson slipped into Castle's apartment and tasered him, tied him up, tortured him just for the hell of it. The ligature marks on Castle's neck means Tyson choked him, but it was his hands-

His hands which are fine. Fine now. Better than fine - exquisite and deft and beautiful.

And usually all over her.

She brushes her teeth after she washes her hands, drops her electric toothbrush in the cradle of the charger as it flashes at her. She steps into the shower and turns it on, lets the instant of cold water make her gasp, shivering, before it heats up and reddens her skin.

She closes her eyes on the persistent mental image of Castle's mangled fingers tied behind his back, turns around to soak everything, let the heaviness of the water in her hair drag her down, wash it all out, gone.

* * *

When she comes back to the bedroom, twisting her hair up on top of her head and dragging a rubber band over it to keep it there, Castle is dead to the world.

She climbs into bed in just a t-shirt, no underwear in case he wants to have a little fun this morning. He's on his stomach, face turned away from her, and she gets a knee under his pillow and manages to slide her leg under him so that his head is in her lap.

Mm, feels good.

Just a pillow separates them and she draws her other knee up to cradle his body, leaning back against the headboard and wriggling a little to get settled. She strokes her fingers over his chin, his temple, into his hair, over and over until her eyes grow heavy.

He's a sound sleeper; he could be out for another couple hours and she gets to touch him without worrying about what he thinks of her for it. No, she's not falling apart. And no, she's not looking to get him worked up. She's just so grateful to have him, and that, like she said to him in the middle of the night, he's still so. . .him.

Irrepressibly Castle.

* * *

He wakes slowly, feels his head wrapped in damp wool, or heat, something that-

Oh, it's Kate Beckett.

He grunts on a laugh that can't escape his chest, tightens his arms around her waist. She feels good. She smells good too. Sharply clean, slightly musky. Actually, he can smell-

"Kate Beckett, you're not wearing any underwear," he murmurs on a grin, lifting his head from his pillow to find that Kate's got him cradled in her lap. His fingers dance at her back, slipping lower, stroking around her flanks, and she gasps, laughing at him.

"I was waiting on you to wake up," she hums.

He grins back and lifts his head to kiss her sternum, high as he can reach, and then drops his head back into his pillow. "Let me still wake up a minute."

"Take your time." She laughs again and her fingers run through his hair. "I got all day."

"Oh, you do?"

"I told you last night. I have today off."

"Oh, that's right. You wanna spend all day in bed?"

"Well. Actually, there's something outside the bed I want to do."

"I told you my back can't take the kitchen floor again-"

He feels her ripple of laughter against his head and chest, grins to himself at how easily he can make her laugh. He half turns on his side and glances up at her, that beautiful smiling face beaming down at him. Her fingers trace his cheek and move up to his eyebrow, brushing lightly.

"What do you want to do, Kate." Not even a question, just his love in words, the sight before him.

She leans over him and softly kisses his mouth. "After I do you?"

He grins into her kiss and threads a hand through her hair. "Mm, you do me and then I do you, and then after _that_, what do you want to do?"

"I want to go to Battery Park."

A walk in Battery Park shouldn't garner this level of excitement from her, that crazy smile and the way she's curled up around him, but he's too dazed by it to figure out what's really going on.

He strokes the edge of her ear and smiles back. "Okay, we'll go to Battery Park."


	2. Chapter 2

**Age of Foolishness**

* * *

Happy Birthday, Julie

* * *

They walk hand in hand from his loft in Soho to the Battery Conservancy; the day is warmer than she expected, and her thin sweater is more than enough with the brilliant sunlight on her skin. She rolls the sleeves up and scrapes a hand through her hair to keep it off her neck. His plaid shirt is soft as it brushes against her forearm and she plays with the tips of his fingers, strokes up inside his palm, eases her thumb around his.

Castle is relaxed; she hasn't seen him so at ease in ages.

She didn't _know_ he hadn't been completely at ease until just now, seeing him happy and grinning and his hair lit with the sun. She wonders what else she's missed-

But no. No. Not today. Today she's going to have _fun_. And so is he.

When they cross the street, the Battery is rippling with purple wildflowers and autumnal flora; the trees are just beginning to shed their leaves due to the mild weather, their lacy reds and oranges dappling the path while a tired green still clings to the branches.

Castle pauses at the sidewalk, just on the threshold.

They stand together for a moment, wordless and replete with the sight, the clear-sky day, and then she laces her fingers slowly through his, one by one, and draws him forward.

* * *

He doesn't expect it when it comes, but it just tumbles out of his mouth. A story that aches to be told.

"I was packing," he says quietly, hearing leaves crunch under his shoes. "I packed a bag for Alexis and I went back to my bedroom to get my suitcase."

Her stride breaks, but she uses the moment to step closer to him, doesn't stop walking. He has to admit the press of her body against his side is a help. It is.

He didn't want to talk about this today, but maybe he did.

"Tyson was waiting for you," she says.

He knows his voice sounds hollow when he replies; he can do nothing to stop it. "He was waiting with the taser."

He's grateful that she doesn't make a sound, grateful she doesn't lead him to a park bench to sit, just keeps on going. Her pace has slowed somewhat, but that's okay. He feels like taking his time with this story.

"When I came to. When I opened my eyes, he wasn't there. My hands were tied behind my back to my feet. So that - every movement pulled. It was-" He swallows and can't help but feel that phantom pressure against his throat.

Her fingers are suddenly there, brushing at his neck, back and forth, her arm heavy at his shoulder. He takes another slow breath and the sense of swollen flesh eases.

"He put the heel of his shoe on my thumb. I was lying in the floor on my side, trussed like a turkey, and he came into my bedroom and laughed, that weird laugh, and then he eased his foot over my hand, slowly, each pound of pressure, one by one."

Her fingers don't stop, rhythmic, soothing, and he doesn't stop either.

"And then he dug in. I heard my thumb pop out of joint the split second before I felt it."

She presses her cheek against his shoulder, her mouth moving to his neck, kissing softly that spot where her thumb rests. They are barely walking now, but they're still moving, still going forward. He can't stop now.

"And then he sat me up, propped me up against the bed or wall, I don't - that's not - it's not clear anymore. I was laughing. Hysterical I think, going into shock, but it just seemed so hilarious, the mental image I had of Jerry Tyson as he pitched a fit like a two year old and stomped on my hands, again and again, screaming, spit flying out of his mouth and on the back of my neck."

Her fingers still for only a moment and he falls silent, watching a dark flock of pigeons against the sky.

"And then." She's prompting but that's okay. He doesn't need the push, but maybe she does.

"And then I passed out. My fingers were - my hands felt like dead things past my wrists. Like meat. Throbbing and thick and painful meat."

She draws in a shaky breath at his side, but he goes on. Their feet are tangling as they attempt to keep walking.

"At some point, he strangled me," he says then, reaching up past her fingers to touch the line at his neck. The collar of his plaid shirt hides most of it, but the scar remains like a necklace, a dark blood blister. "I have no memory of when. Maybe I was unconscious. Maybe the pain in my hands blinded me to everything else. I don't remember much besides my fingers getting broken."

She hums something, her thumb briefly glancing across his along his neck and he drops his hand.

"Castle. How'd you get to your study?"

"The gun," he says immediately, shakes his head to get the story right. "I woke at some point and he'd gone to get. . .I don't know. I thought - I have a gun in my safe. In the study. So I inchwormed-"

A huff of breath from her, something like a laugh, and he can smile at that. It feels _good_ to smile at that.

"Inchwormed?" she murmurs then, evidently seeing his smile. "Oh, I see. Because your hands and feet were tied behind your back. Oh, God, Castle, that must have hurt."

He nods. Understatement, of course, but there are no words for that agony.

"So you got to your study."

"I was inchworming on the floor and he sees me - oh, I think - yes. He said before that he wanted you to find me dead like that and I couldn't - at least you weren't there. That's what I first thought, at least Kate isn't here for this."

"Cas-"

He turns finally and looks at her and she closes her mouth, takes it. She takes it.

He can tell her the rest now, easily. "I didn't want you to find me like that. So I went for the study. I thought I'd get my letter opener and cut through the rope, or at least manage the floor safe where the gun is, was-"

"Was?"

"Now it's in the bedside table."

"Oh, Rick, I-"

He presses his lips together to keep the growl out of his voice, reaches up to his neck to snag her hand. She quiets but she doesn't stop walking, draws him deeper into the Battery, their hips bumping, knees clashing, feet tripping. Too close but he can't move her away, doesn't want to not feel her.

"I can put the gun back now," he says finally. "I can - it should go back in the safe."

She says nothing and he nods softly to himself, glad to be able to choose that, finally, to have that done.

"He saw you going for the study before you could get to the safe?" she murmurs then.

"Yes. And I couldn't stand, couldn't even think of - so I just rolled in front of the door to block it, and he was furious, and that helped."

"Helped?"

"I liked pissing him off."

She startles out a laugh and he grins back at her, a little life trickling through his veins again.

"And then?"

"I don't know," he says honestly. "And then you. You called me. You had me. I don't know. It hurt and I don't - I wasn't conscious for everything. And then I remember being in the hospital and them saying I had surgery. Or that I needed heart surgery? I don't know. It's a mess."

"In your study, your heart. . .I had to - and then the EMTs got a rhythm but in the ambulance you died. Castle. When they shocked you, you opened your eyes and you-"

He glances over at her, surprised by the streak of tears down her cheeks. "Hey. Okay, it's okay. I'm okay."

She nods. "Just hard to watch," she gets out.

"I don't remember the ambulance."

"You begged me not to let Tyson taser you again. When they shocked your heart."

"Oh," he whispers.

"It was. . ."

He takes her hand up again and kisses the back of it; he's forgotten that this hurt her too. Forgotten she has scars on the inside when his are so obvious on the outside.

"It was bad," he agrees. "But it's not now."

She gives him a watery smile and then ducks her head. "It's not now."

Castle pauses and draws her into an embrace, right there in the middle of the sidewalk path, her body both soft and strong against his. She presses her nose into his neck, breathes out against those rope lines circling his skin, moist and warm, before she kisses him there. Soft. Delicate.

"We'll be okay," he assures her, cradling the back of her head in one hand. With fingers that work. That are no longer mangled. "We'll be just fine, Kate."

"When?" she sighs.

"Soon."

* * *

She lets them wander for a while because she's not quite sure where this thing is located, only that she assumed there would be signs. Castle seems content to stroll, the silence between them making up for all those words.

She's glad she knows now, glad he told her, but it still broke her open to hear it.

The quiet is good for them.

He's steering them towards Battery Park, and she thinks it's in that direction, so she lets him unconsciously lead, the warm light against her cheeks and the specter of crisp fall brushing against her senses.

They stay hand in hand, sometimes leaning out against each other's hold, sometimes settling in close enough to trip each other up, but mostly establishing a pattern and rhythm that doesn't falter.

They are approaching _just fine, _they are coming up on _okay again_; she can practically see it. Like that castle, she thinks, and grins at the sight before them.

"Did you know that's Castle Clinton?" he murmurs, and even as he says it, the edifice comes completely into view.

She grins and glances over at him, catches his sparkling eyes. "I did."

"Used to be called Castle Garden - it was a theatre. Mother still calls it that."

"It hasn't been a theatre since. . .forever," she laughs. "I'm sure your mother wasn't alive-"

"No, no. She's just making a statement. Not since the late 1800s? Something like that."

"And it was an Emigrant Landing Depot, before Ellis Island. And the Aquarium."

"Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten it was the Aquarium." Something flashes across his eyes; she can see him reaching for a memory and she wonders if he's beginning to remember their destination, if somewhere back there he's thought about going himself.

"The Aquarium was closed in 1941," she says slowly, watching him for that telltale flicker of awareness. "It's part of the history of this place. They like to hold on to their heritage here."

"And then they opened the Aquarium on Coney Island," he finishes, smiling at her.

She presses her lips together and then sees it, just past the castle in Battery Park, and her heart flips. "But in honor of that attraction," she starts, leading him by the hand towards the park.

And then they can see it - the whole massive structure.

"_Kate_," he breathes.

"Sea Glass," she announces. "An aquatic carousel."

* * *

Sea Glass.

"It's shaped like a conch shell," he murmurs, excitement beginning to make his voice hoarse, like it always does now, since the rope. "Look at that, Kate. Wow. When did they do this? Why haven't I heard anything about it?"

"It opened this spring," she says. "It's been in the works for years now, but - I don't know. I think I remember you telling me about it, actually."

"I don't remember this. I'd remember this," he rasps, glancing back to her with eyes that are as blue as the ocean, his words an eerie echo of a few hours ago.

"You wouldn't necessarily remember," she says, easing her way into it. "But that's okay. Because I remembered for you."

He shrugs off the association, glances back to the carousel. "Are we riding this?"

"We're riding this," she says with a twist of her lips. Because it's _fun_. And they need it.

"We are _so _riding this," he laughs. And then he drags her to the line.

* * *

The carousel is ethereal and magnificent and amazing. The ride rotates within a chambered nautilus, like a conch shell standing up with a carousel inside it. The spiraling sides are actually projection screens displaying sea life, mystical and gorgeous. The whole thing has that light-on-the-water refraction as it slowly sinks down darker and bluer and deeper until the screens are swimming with fish.

The hush of water and whales echoes in the vast reaches and up to the sky while the main turntable rotates, the sea creatures moving up and down and circling themselves like a slow dance.

At first, Castle can't decide which one he wants to ride - the leaping dolphin, the sea turtle, the hammerhead, the strident sea horse.

But he chooses the angelfish because they can sit together inside its belly, and Kate crawls in after him, nestled at his side with her hand in his. Children are running for their favorites, a few fathers have toddlers in front of them, a mother sits alone in the lip of a conch shell looking serene and mermaidesque. Kate's fingers play against his thigh as they wait for everyone to get settled.

The music starts and the sea anemone that acts as a focal point begins to unfurl in bioluminescent colors, the ocean life spinning around it. The slow slide of the carousel drifts them easily into an otherworldly existence.

It's flying and it's swimming. It's beautiful.

Kate lays her head against his shoulder and he can't even look at her. His eyes are filled with the ripple of water overhead and the dance of sea life, the sway of the creatures around them and the easy pulse of lights.

Dolphins swimming above, the faint glow of plankton, the shimmer of tiny fish, and the rhythm of a sting ray all swirl around him, swallow him, drown him deep in an ocean peace. The music is haunting, the depth and range of the vast water in its sounds, and he finds himself hypnotized.

It's only when her fingers caress his cheeks that he realizes he's crying, that he has been crying all along, but she says nothing, simply draws the tears away with her thumb, the soft heel of her hand drying his eyes. He kisses her palm and can't look, but she doesn't ask for it.

The ride goes on in undulations of an angelfish, the skin and scales glowing with blue light, pink, that soft purple, and finally a watery green. The glide and slip of fish in the water, the darting schools, the graceful waving motion of dolphins, all lull him down into a dream.

The music fades, soft and ghostly, a whisper of salt air on his face, across his lips, and he takes a last, deep breath as the ride slows to a stop.

Kate's knees press into his thigh and she leans in so gently, tenderness shaping her eyes, and she kisses him, that brush of lips that makes his heart falter and then steady on, stronger for it.

"We okay now?" she whispers.

"We're okay."

He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against hers, sapped of everything, curiously filled up for being so emptied out.

"I love you." Their words meet in the warm air between them, touch each other, and a flicker of a smile lights her face.

"Jinx," he whispers, and then he leads her off the carousel and back on dry land.


End file.
